"I thought that they were replicas that had been dropped there by tourists."

But the coins turned out to be genuine and dated back to between 300 and 400 AD.

Diggers discovered a total of 10 coins near Katsuren Castle in the town of Uruma, including some from the Ottoman Empire.

"We don't think that there is a direct link between the Roman empire and Katsuren castle, but the discovery confirms how this region had trade relations with the rest of Asia," said Masaki Yokou, a spokesperson from Uruma city’s Board of Education.

Archaeologists are now planning to examine the coins as well as the pottery found alongside them to understand why the currency turned up in such an unexpected place.

"The Chinese ceramics and coins that we found date back at least 600 to 700 years and we'd like to analyze those objects in tandem with these coins to work out how the coins may have ended up here," Miyagi added.Of course, any regular reader of this blog knows that it is possible that Emperor Hadrian's favorite bath house architect slipped through a Space/Time worm hole in the drains of a Roman bath house ... and ended up in Japan.Click HERE to see how those Roman coins REALLY ended up in Japan!

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

ON September 28th the Ancient Egyptians celebrated the Feast of the Creation of the Nile Inundation as represented by the transgender deity HAPI.It was through HAPI that Antinous worked his first miracle ... bringing about a bountiful Nile inundation which ended a long famine ... only a few months after he died and was deified.

Hapi is special to us especially because Hapi is transgender. With many other such deities, the gender division is down the middle of the body (like some Hindu deities) or the top half is one gender and the bottom half is the other.

But Hapi is very complex and the genders are mixed throughout his/her body. Male deities invariably have reddish-orange skin in Egyptian Art and female deities have yellowish skin. However, Hapi has bluish-green skin. Hapi has long hair like a female deity but has a square jaw and a beard. Hapi has broad shoulders yet has pendulous breasts like a nursing mother. Hapi has narrow hips and masculine thighs, but has a pregnant belly. Nobody knows what sort of genitals Hapi has, since they are covered by a strange garment reminiscent of a sumo wrestler's belt.

Hapi is both father and mother to the Egyptians. Hapi provides them with everything necessary for life. As Herodotus wrote, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile". Hapi wears a fabulous headdress of towering water plants and she/he carries enormous offering trays laden with foodstuffs.The Ancient Egyptians had no problem worshipping a mixed-gender deity. It is very important to draw the connection between Hapi and Antinous, especially since the First Miracle that Antinous performed as a god involved Hapi. The Egyptians accepted Antinous into their own belief system immediately and were among the most ardent followers of Antinous.They had no problem worshipping a gay deity who had united himself with a transgender deity. It must have seemed very logical and credible to them.

It made sense to them and enriched their belief system, made it more personal since they could identify more easily with a handsome young man than with a hermaphrodite wearing a sumo belt (Hapi forgive me!).

Herodotus also said he once asked a very learned religious man in Egypt what the true source of the Nile was.

The learned man (speaking through an interpreter, since most Greeks never bothered to learn Egyptian) paused and finally told him the true source of the Nile is the thigh of Osiris.

We think of it as a strange answer. We think of the Nile as an "it" and the source as a "geographical location".

But the Egyptians thought of the Nile as "us" and its true source as "heka" — the magical semen of the creator.

So, a learned Egyptian would have assumed that a learned Greek would understand what was meant: That Hapi is the equivalent of Dionysus, who was "incubated" in the inner thigh of Zeus after his pregnant mortal mother Semele perished when she could not bear the searing sight of her lover Zeus in all his divine panoply.

It's a very poetic way (a very Egyptian way) of saying that the "true source" of the Nile, which is to say Egypt itself, is the magical heka/semen from the loins of the original creator.The grandest depiction of HAPI is a colossal statue found in the submerged ruins of HERACLEION at the mouth of the Nile ... this statue once flanked the portals of the Great Temple in that city before earthquakes and tsunamis sent it to the bottom of the sea.

It was rediscovered by marine archaeologist Marck Goddio and is the highlight of a British MuseumEXHIBITION... as seen in the photo at left.We will never know what happened during that journey up the Nile along the drought-parched fields with anxious Egyptian farmers looking to Hadrian for a miracle ... in September and October of the year 130 AD. All we know is that Antinous "plunged into the Nile" and into the arms of Hapi in late October of the year 130.

And then the following summer, Hapi the Inundation Deity provided a bountiful Nile flood which replenished the food stocks of Egypt — and the Roman Empire.The First Miracle of Antinous the Gay God is enshrined in the hieroglyphic inscription on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS which stands in Rome.The East Face of the Obelisk, which is aligned to the rising sun Ra-Herakhte, speaks of the joy that fills the heart of Antinous since having been summoned to meet his heavenly father Ra-Herakhte and to become a god himself.

Then the inscription tells how Antinous intercedes with Ra-Herakhte to shower blessings upon Hadrian and the Empress Sabina Augusta.

And Antinous immediately calls upon Hapi ...

Hapi, progenitor of the gods,On behalf of Hadrian and Sabina,Arrange the inundation in fortuitous timeTo make fertile and bountiful, the fieldsOf Both Upper and Lower Egypt!

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

EXPERTS have made an astonishing find at Petra, the fabled caravan trade route crossroads city which Antinous and Hadrian visited on their way to a rendezvous with destiny in Egypt.They have revealed a startlingly advanced irrigation system and water storage system that enabled the desert city's people to survive ... and to maintain a magnificent garden featuring fountains, ponds and a huge swimming pool.The engineering feats and other luxuries attest to the ancient Nabatean capital's former splendor and wealth some 2,000 years ago.Earlier this year aGIANT MONUMENTAL PLATFORM was discovered just a kilometer from the ruins of the city in Jordan. The archaeologists describe the unparalleled find as "a large rectangular platform" that measures 55 meters by 50 meters (184 feet by 160 feet) and was essentially "hiding in plain sight."Petra is perhaps best known for its sandstone canyon that leads directly to Al Khazneh, The Treasury, seen in the climax to "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" where the heroes, played by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, ride out of the canyon and into the Treasury in their quest for the Holy Grail.

However, 2,000 years ago, Petra was renowned for completely different reasons.It was one of the most famous water stops in the Middle East, where camel caravan routes linked distant cities.Now archaeologists are discovering the Nabataean capital, situated in the southwestern deserts of Jordan, once was adorned with an exquisite, artificially irrigated garden.It featured paths likely shaded by vines, trees and date palms, and grasses, which were cultivated next to a huge, 44-meter wide swimming pool.The Nabataeans’ ability to tame nature, and conspicuous consumption of a precious resource, water, was pure propaganda.It was a means to display wealth and power, which they could do thanks to the ingenious hydraulic system they invented, which allowed the people not only to reserve enough water for their own needs, but to water the lavish garden with fountains and an open-air pool.

It had previously been unthinkable that water, a scarce resource in the desert wastes, would have been used for anything but necessity."The pool marks the terminus for an aqueduct that transported water from one of the springs, 'Ein Brak, located in the hills outside of Petra," Leigh-Ann Bedal, anthropologist from Penn State Behrend College, told Haaretz. "The pool’s monumental architecture and verdant garden served as a visual celebration of the Nabataeans' success at providing water to the city center."Ongoing excavations in Petra have uncovered a shaft that appears to have led water more than 10 meters downward, from the aqueduct system to the pool level.The archaeologists have also found underground channels that helped control runoff during the rainy season, revealing the true complexity of the system for the first time.

Occupied since prehistoric times, the lost Nabataean civilization made the part-carved, part-built city their capital and a major caravan center of trade from the 4th Century BC to the first century AD.

During Hellenistic and Roman times it became a major caravan centre for the incense of Arabia, the silks of China and the spices of India ... a crossroads between Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia.

Hadrian and Antinous stopped at Petra on their way from Antioch to Alexandria.

Monday, September 26, 2016

ON International Rabbit Day, September 26th, we honor the Chinese "Rabbit God" of homosexuality.Just as Antinous the Gay God is being re-discovered in the West, Hu Tianbao alias Tu Er Shen the "Rabbit God" is being rediscovered by Chinese gay people.

Incredibly, both deities involve young gay men who were in love with men of high standing ... and who died tragically ... and who became gods of the spiritual essence of homosexuality.

Antinous is a true-life historical figure, of course, but his Chinese counterpart is shrouded in myth and legend ... involving rabbits.

According to Zi Bu Yu (子不語), a book written by Yuan Mei (袁枚, a Qing dynasty writer), Tu Er Shen (兔兒神 or 兔神) was a mortal man called Hu Tianbao (胡天保).

Hu Tianbao fell in love with a very handsome imperial inspector of Fujian Province. One day Hu Tianbao was caught peeping on the inspector through a toilet wall, at which point he came out to the other man. To save face, the imperial inspector had no choice but to have Hu Tianbao beaten to death.

One month after Hu Tianbao's death, he is said to have appeared to a man from his hometown in a dream, claiming that since his crime was one of love, the gods decided to right the injustice by appointing him the god and safeguarder of homosexual affections.

After his dream the man erected a shrine to Hu Tianbao, which became very popular in Fujian province, so much so that in late Qing times, the cult of Hu Tianbao was suppressed by the homophobic Qing government.

A slang term for homosexuals in late imperial China was Tuzi (兔子) (bunnies) which is why Hu Tianbao is referred to as the RABBIT GOD, although in fact he has nothing to do with rabbits and should not be confused with TU-ER-YE (兔儿爷） the famous "Rabbit in the Moon" which is the Chinese version of the "Man in the Moon".

However, the rabbit association stuck, and even today his devotees portray him with rabbit ears and make offerings of carrots to his altars. The handsome statuette in this image is lovingly clothed in a rabbit-fur cloak.

While no one knows if gays in mainland China worship him ... there is a temple in Yonghe city (永和市）in Taiwan that venerates Hu Tianbao, alias Tu Er Shen. The temple is known as the RABBIT TEMPLE (兔兒廟). The address is Taipei, Yonghe City, Yonghe Road Section 1, Alley 37, No 12.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

THE Mallawi Museum, only a few miles from Antinoopolis in Egypt, reopened this week after being ransacked by looters three years ago.

Most of the museum's 1,000-piece collection has also been recovered from looters and is back on display following a $1 million renovation.

The museum was ransacked in August 2013 during a period of violence in the country following the ousting of the former president Mohamed Morsi.

The looters shot one member of the museum staff dead and stole almost all of the artefacts on display. Other items, too large to remove, were vandalised, destroyed or burned.

The objects stolen predominantly date to the Graeco-Roman Period and included jewellery, shabti figurines depicting workers in the afterlife, statues of the gods Osiris, Isis, Hathor and Thoth, pottery, papyri, gold coins and wooden coffins.

Many of the objects were returned by local people after Egyptian authorities promised a small reward and that no criminal charges would be brought against them.

The Mallawi National Museum in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya, adjacent to Antinoopolis, was severly damaged and looted by rioters as part of deadly clashes that erupted across the country.Afterwards, police and volunteers managed to gather together the artefacts that had not been stolen and transferred them to a secure vault at nearby Al-Ashmunein ... ancient Hermopolis (called Shmunu by the Ancient Egyptians).

Hermopolis was the last city that Antinous saw before his death in October 130 AD. He died at a bend in the Nile a short distance from Hermopolis ... and that was where Antinoopolis was founded.There has also been widespread blatantLOOTING AT ANTINOOPOLISin recent years.

The entire Assyut/Minya area is a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism.

Ironically, the area has always been a region of religious fervor, dating back to Antinoopolis ... and even further back to the 18th Dynasty when "heretic" Pharaoh Akhenaten founded his capital city Akhetaten a few miles south of the site where Antinous would plunge into the Nile and his sacred city would be founded in the year 130 AD.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

THE history books will have to be rewritten now that 1,900-year-old Chinese skeletons have been unearthed among Roman skeletons at an ancient cemetery in London.It was an otherwise unremarkable Roman cemetery at the site of ancient Roman Londinium, containing the bodies of ordinary people. They lived and died on the banks of the Thames, making a living in the poorer and dirtier districts of Roman Londinium.When an analysis of the skeletons came through, no one expected a result that could change our view of the history of Europe and Asia. But that is what archaeologists seem to have found, because two of the skeletons, dated to between the 2nd and 4th Century AD, were Chinese.The findings promise to rewrite the history of the Romans as it suggests these two great empires ... the Chinese Empire and the Roman Empire ... had far greater connections than previously believed.

While it is known that there was extensive trade between China and ancient Rome along what became known as the Silk Road, the two empires are thought to have viewed each other warily.Accounts from the time suggest the Chinese were curious about the TALL AND VIRTUOUS PEOPLE far to the west, while the Romans found their rivals in the east mysterious but valued their silk cloth.There is even a village in western China whose residents claim to be descendants of soldiers from a LOST ROMAN LEGION.Despite the trade between the empires, however, only one person of Asian ancestry has ever been found on sites dating back to the Roman Empire ... an adult man unearthed at Vagnari in Italy.

But now research led by the Museum of London has revealed two more individuals of Asian ancestry, buried among the remains of other citizens of ancient Londinium.According to the THE TIMES, while experts have not been able to identify their exact origins, it is likely these people had come from China.Writing in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Dr Rebecca Redfern, an archaeologist at the Museum of London, said how they ended up there is a mystery.She and her colleagues said: 'The expansion of the Roman Empire across most of western Europe and the Mediterranean, led to the assimilation and movement of many ethnically and geographically diverse communities.

Friday, September 23, 2016

THERE are Catholic rosary beads, Eastern Orthodox beads, Swedish Lutheran Frälserkransen beads, Islamic prayer beads, Buddhist meditation beads, Hindu japa mala beads and even Wiccan prayer beads ... now several adherents of Antinous are designing prayer beads.This photo shows Antinous Prayer Beads designed and created by Antonius Subia. Click here to read how he hand-crafted the FLAMEN ANTONIUS SUBIA PRAYER BEADS.Priests Uendi and Hernestus also have created their own special prayer beads ... very different in design and function from Antonius Subia's beads.Priest Hernestus calls his the "Antinous Moon Magic" beads and describes them in full detail HERE.They consist of 52 beads symbolizing the 52 primary annual lunar phases, each of which represents a specific archetypal spirit in Antinous Moon Magic (photo at left).In addition, there are some 30 additional beads representing various major "Saints of Antinous" and "Blessed Souls of Antinous."There are also has beads for what Hernestus calls his "Sorgenkinder" (German for "special needs children") ... beads for persons or situations which require urgent spiritual attention.Priest Uendi's beads have a unique flavor all their own and she uses them in her daily meditations and prayers (photo below right).

Many other modern-day Antinous adherents have created their own Antinous Prayer Beads.

You can construct a set of prayer beads with a variety of themes and use them in rituals to express your particular beliefs and spiritual interests.

Let's look at ideas for two different types of Pagan prayer beads. The first set is a devotional one that honors the elements, the changing seasons, and the phases of the moon. The second pays tribute to Antinous.

Sort your beads and arrange them so they for a pattern that you like. You may want to try different patterns and designs and see which feels right for you.

Once you have your beads aligned the way you like them, string them on the beading wire and knot it securely. To use your beads in ritual, assign a prayer or short devotional to each bead. As you count them, recite the prayers.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

ON THE EQUINOX in September the Religion of Antinous commemorates the FEAST OF THE PERSEPHONEA — the initiation of Antinous into the ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES in Greece at the outset of Emperor Hadrian's Imperial Tour of the Eastern Provinces.

Historical records state that, in the late summer of the year 128, the Imperial Court embarked on a grand tour of the East. The Empress Sabina, Hadrian's wife, and her attendants were members of the entourage.

But on this particular journey, Antinous was the most favored of Hadrian's companions. Their love affair was openly, and gracefully displayed before the eyes of the world. This journey through the East, what we call the SACRED PEREGRINATION, is the only part of the short life of Antinous that history has conveyed to us.

For this reason it takes on the importance of a sacred epic. Antinous was in the very flower of his beauty and vigor, he was a shining star held in the wings of the Imperial Eagle, and it is no coincidence that this court of demigods should travel through the lands of Ganymede, Attis, Adonis, Jesus and Osiris, who were all beautiful souls taken from life before their time.The court stayed in Athens for five or even six months, they arrived in time for the celebration of the MYSTERIES OF ELEUSIS, which symbolically portrayed the rape of Proserpina by Hades, the mourning of her mother Demeter, and the return of Spring. In the modern Religion of Antinous, we commemorate these ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES during the September Equinox, for it is believed that Antinous underwent the secret initiations provided by the Priests of Eleusis at the Temple of Demeter/Ceres.The painting above by Joseph Gandy in 1818 shows how the temple may have looked in the 2nd Century AD. The painting at right is "The Garden of Persephone" by Robert Hale Ives Gammell.Through the Priests of Eleusis Antinous received the consecration of the dark goddess of the underworld Persephone/Proserpina, which prepared him for his own death and resurrection.

In the Mysteries of Eleusis, the initiates are led into the realm of death and are confronted with immediate death. Two years later, in 130 AD, Hadrian and Antinous would indeed be confronted by physical death. In the Mysteries of Eleusis (and indeed in the Underworld after Death), the initiates cannot go back the way they have come. And they cannot go forward without knowing the Words of Power that will allow the gatekeepers to throw open their gates.

But we face such situations not only in secret initiations, or on our deathbeds. No, we face such "mysteries" every day of our lives.

We put off our dreams and aspirations so we can cope more effectively with the challenges of the present, ostensibly to have more time and leisure to realize our purpose in the future. Or we tell ourselves that we will chase our dreams someday once we have accomplished other lesser goals.(Photo left: Antinous statue found at Eleusis.)In truth, it is our fear that keeps us from seeking fulfillment in the here and now — because we view failure as a possibility, our reasons for delaying our inevitable success seem sound and rational. If we ask ourselves what we are really waiting for, however, we discover that there is no truly compelling reason why we should put off the pursuit of the dreams that sustain us.

That is what "mystery initiations" are all about. Hadrian and Antinous were forced by the Eleusinian priests to confront their fears and to find a way to go forth into life — NOW. They had no options. It was now or never. Life or Oblivion. In our own lives, we face the same question every day. And usually we try to find a way to avoid the question.

The idols, the images, the icons, the gilded statues and the gods themselves are as nothing.YOU YOURSELF HOLD THE KEYS TO FINDING AND FULFILLING YOUR OWN DESTINY.It is yours to find and to fulfill. No one else's. Not even the gods'.

That is what the ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES are all about. And that is what the PERSEPHONEA is all about. And the Journey Up the Nile by Hadrian and Antinous to their Fateful Destiny with Eternity. And it is also what the symbolism of the Equinoxes is all about.

Even if the days are getting shorter, they are also getting longer — it is all a matter of perspective. The days ARE getting longer — our brothers in South America, South Africa and Australia can look out the window and see the lavender blossoms of the jacarandas in springtime bloom.

Remember Hadrian and Antinous in the Underworld (or on their Fateful Voyage Up the Nile) and understand what they understood: That the keys of fate are in your hands and you can venture forth RIGHT NOW wherever you wish to go.

He is able to enter any place he wishes.The Guardians of the GatesOf the UnderworldSay "Praise to You!" to Him...They loosen their boltsAnd throw open their Gates before Him ...Millions of years ... daily ...As His duration of life is as the sun,Never in eternity elapsing!"

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

ON 21st September I and the companions of Antinous venerate one of my heroes (flawed though he was), King Edward II of England. His story is fascinating, scandalous and, ultimately, tragic.

His story is also one of the earliest recorded examples of homophobic abuse and murder in British history.

Contemporary accounts say Prince Edward was handsome, athletic and had acquired a reputation for extravagance.

His father, Edward I was powerful and successful in battles. Before his father's death, Prince Edward II had angered his father by his "excessive affection" for a young men, especially one called Piers Gaveston. Piers was a nobleman fromGascon - an area of South West France. Piers was Edward II's favourite lover from a group of 12 handsome young men he is recorded as always having around him.

In July 1307 King Edward I died and and was succeeded by King Edward II - he was 23. The image below is the only surviving contemporary depiction of Edward II, showing his coronation.

On 25 January 1308 Edward married Isabella (who was aged between twelve and sixteen at the time) the daughter of Philip IV of France. It was a marriage of convenience to consolidate power across the Norman empire. With her he needed to sire a future King, so they had several children including a son who later became King Edward III.

King Edward II was dependent on the support of the powerful English barons. However, they believed that a king had a duty to distribute patronage fairly amongst the aristocracy - not abdicate his responsibilities by showering it all on one non-aristocratic favorite. At the parliament held in April 1308 the barons demanded hat Gaveston be banished.

Edward II reluctantly agreed and sent Gaveston to Ireland as his Lieutenant there (June 1308). However, he immediately began to scheme for Gaveston's return - implementing a policy of "divide and rule", buying off some of the barons with favours. Finally the "Statute of Stamford" was signed to redress baronial grievances in exchange for Gaveston's return.

Quickly the affair with Piers began to offend the barons again. Gaveston clearly had a stinging sense of humour. He began openly inventing scandalous names for each baron. We know that "Black Dog" was applied to the Earl of Warwick, and "Bursting Belly" for the Earl of Lincoln!!

Unfortunately Edward began to lose the ground his father had won. He lost battles with Robert the Bruce thus effectively losing Scotland. The barons mutinied and, again, tried to banish Gaveston. They placed themselves in effective control of the country. Edward II refused to accept his overthrow and Gaveston's exile, so civil war erupted. Edward II placed Gaveston in Scarborough Castle under the protection of two Earls from of his trusted band of 12 men. The castle was besieged and the Earls were forced to surrender the castle and Gaveston. He was thrown in a dungeon, and then beheaded on 19 June 1312.

In deep grief Edward lost the plot. In the vacuum that followed Robert the Bruce won a famous victory at Bannockburn thus securing Scotland as a separate kingdom for centuries ahead.

Also Queen Isabella began an adulterous affair with one of the Earls, Roger Mortimer. Isabella and Mortimer formed an army which overthrew Edward in 1326.

He was imprisoned in a damp pit at Berkeley Castle. Two of his beloved 12 supporters made two attempts to free him but failed.

What happened next is not 100% clear but contemporary accounts show that Isabella and Mortimer announced that Edward was dead in September 1327.

Many rumours circulated about the cause of death but the account recognised by most historians is that one man held Edward down while another pushed a red hot shaft of iron into his rectum. The screams where reputed to have been heard well beyond the castle walls.

In 1594 Christopher Marlowe published his play The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England. Marlowe was gay and reputed by many to have been the secret lover of William Shakespeare - maybe even the true author of Shakespeare's plays. Edward II the play is never taught in schools and remained pretty much ignored until Derek Jarman's wonderful film of the play in 1991.

When I was learning British history at school the reign of Edward II was simply referred to as the 'failed rule of Edward II'.

Most gay men know of Edward II here in the UK. He is an underground cult here to many.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

AS diplomats from around the world converge on New York today for the United Nations General Assembly, a work of ancient Roman architecture from the Syrian site of Palmyra has risen in replica in City Hall Park.

It replicates an icon of the ancient city that was destroyed by ISIS, and symbolizes a call for global efforts to preserve cultural heritage.

The Institute for Digital Archeology (IDA), which resides at the University of Oxford, erected the arch, which stands about 25 feet tall and weighs nearly 30,000 pounds.

It was made from Egyptian marble by craftsmen in Italy.

Earlier this year the two-thirds scale replica was erected in TRAFALGAR SQUARE in London and also stood in Dubai.

It was crafted from carrara marble and then shipped in pieces to London.The institute behind the project hopes the arch will draw attention to the importance of cultural heritage.

DAESH militants have ransacked and demolished several similar ancient sites to Palmyra that pre-date Islam in Iraq, denouncing them as symbols of "idolatry".

Alexy Karenowska, from the Institute of Digital Archaeology, which is behind the project, says she hopes it will help people understand how important it is to preserve cultural sites in war-torn countries such as Syria.

She says: "People say, 'should we be worrying about this stuff when human lives are being lost?'"Of course all of this stuff takes second place to human life, but these cultural objects are very important to give a sense of place and community."When Antinous saw Palmyra in ancient times, this arch was the formal entryway into the oasis city which was one of the most wondrous marvels of Ancient Syria.He arrived with Hadrian to be initiated into Mithras Mysteries 1,900 years ago and most certainly entered the city through this arch.Palmyra was called the "Garden City of the Sands" and scientists say it wasTERRA-FARMED to create a lush green oasis of life and civilization in the midst of the desert.

Monday, September 19, 2016

SEPTEMBER 19the Religion of Antinous celebrates the birth of the Divine Emperor Antoninus Pius.Caesar Titus Aurelius Fulvius Boionius Arrius Antoninus was born on this day 86 A.D. at Lanuvium, near Rome.

Under the Divine Hadrian he served as Proconsul of Asia minor from 130 to 135, the most crucial years in the development of the Religion of Antinous. After that he was summoned to Rome to be close to Hadrian as his health failed.

With the untimely death of the emperor's chosen heir, the blessed Lucius Aelius Verus Caesar, Hadrian chose Antoninus to be his successor. Thus Hadrian adopted him as his son and successor on the 25th of February 138, on condition that he himself adopted Hadrian's great nephew-by-marriage Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius Aelius Verus's son Lucius Verus, who was only 7 years old.

Hadrian's choice in successors proved to be infinitely wise.

Following decades of political turmoil, civil strife and imperial excesses, Hadrian and his successors ushered one final period of peace and prosperity for Rome which would go done in history as the Sacred and Golden Age of the Antonines.

On Hadrian's death, Antoninus Pius was enthusiastically welcomed to the throne by the Roman people, whose hopes of a happy reign were not disappointed. For Antoninus came to his new office with simple tastes, kindly disposition, extensive experience, a well-trained intelligence and the sincerest desire for the welfare of his subjects.

One of his first acts was to persuade the Senate to grant divine honors to Hadrian, which they had at first refused (but later agreed to). This gained him the title of Pius (dutiful in affection). He built temples, theaters, and mausoleums, promoted the arts and sciences, and bestowed honors and salaries upon the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy.

Unlike his predecessors Trajan and Hadrian, Antoninus Pius was not a military man. His reign was comparatively peaceful. Insurrections amongst the Moors, Jews, and Brigantes in Britain were easily put down. The one military result which is of interest to us now is the building in Britain of the Wall of Antoninus (a few miles north of Hadrian's Wall), which was proclaimed in 2008 to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

During his reign, Antoninus issued coins celebrating the religious glory of Rome in celebration of the nine hundredth anniversary of the city in 147. The coins asserted the superiority of Romanism over the Empire.

Antoninus is said to have restored the sanctity of the ancient Roman faith, and to have reinvigorated its ceremonies, which is another possible reason why he was surnamed Pius.

The Religion of Antinous was in its infancy when Antoninus Pius came to power. The Blessed Boy's temples were under construction. The Sacred City of Antinoopolis was unfinished. It would have been easy for Antoninus Pius to pull the plug on the expense involved in the new religion. After all, Antoninus Pius was known as a penny-pincher who demanded fiscal restraint.

Instead, Antoninus Pius generously supplied the fledgling religion with imperial largess and was instrumental in the spread of the Faith of Antinous in those early years. Without him, the religion would have vanished at Hadrian's death. Instead, it flourished for centuries.

After the longest reign since Augustus (surpassing Tiberius by a couple of months), Antoninus died of fever on March 7, 161. His last public utterance was when the tribune of the night-watch came to ask the password — "aequanimit as" (equanimity). It was a fitting epitaph.

His body was placed in Hadrian's Mausoleam, a column was dedicated to him on Mars Field, and the temple he had built in the Forum in 141 to his deified wife Faustina was rededicated to the deified Faustina and the deified Antoninus. The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina still stands today in the Roman Forum (at right, now called the Church of San Lorenzo in Miranda).

We pay tribute to Antoninus Pius, who truly lived up to his title as a man of wisdom and piety.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

MAGINATIONis
the key word. Just imagine the cramped artist's studio in London's
Chelsea district and, with the help of the artist's images, you are
there. It is December 1909. The solid-black walls of the apartment
contrast starkly with the red-orange drapes.

Jamaican
folk artefacts share space on a Victorian curio shelf with photographs
of friends and relatives — a mother in Jamaica, a father in Brooklyn
Heights, a famous actress in a West End production, Bram Stoker, W.B.
Yeats. The jet-black walls form a void-like exhibition space which
highlights the dazzling Caribbean art as well as the dozens of paintings
and sketches which line the walls. Suffragette posters. Oil landscapes.
But particularly watercolor illustrations of dreamscapes and fairy
tales.A
brightly painted miniature theatre with ornate proscenium and cloth
curtain stands proudly in one corner, with its cast of tiny cardboard
cut-out "actors" waiting patiently for their entrances.

An enormous gramophone stands in the opposite corner, and Debussy's La Mer is playing at full volume, as it has been all morning. The neighbours have long since stopped complaining about the music.

The
artist, Pamela Colman Smith, is a petite woman in her early 30s who
sits in the middle of the studio with paint brush in hand, mixing
watercolors, her eyes trance-like as the music envelops her. She is
wearing a vividly hued kimono with broad sleeves made even more colorful
by splotches of paint.

One
of the two Japanese combs pinning back her long dark hair has loosened,
causing her tresses to sag to one side, but she is oblivious. The
paint is dripping from her brush, but she pays no mind, keeping her eyes
firmly shut as Debussy transports her to a place she calls "the unknown
country" of her artistic inner heart.

On
the easel in front of her is a small canvas showing an androgynous
person wearing a short kimono-like tunic with sleeves and an abstract
floral design uncannily like the kimono she is wearing. The figure is
striding to a precipice as a small white animal dances at his heels.

The
painting is almost finished. The outline was done in pen. Only a few
more brush strokes are needed for the hand-coloring. Debussy will
provide the musical sunrise which will be the cue that the illustration
is finished.

And
then the small illustration will join all the others (about 80 in all,
give or take one or two) which are carefully arranged on drying shelves
around the studio. The printer is waiting. The cards must be delivered
by the end of December.

She
has been working on the Tarot card project for about a year, since
Arthur E.A. Waite asked her to illustrate "his" new pack of Tarot cards
in his long-running one-upsmanship feud with other occultists in
London.

He
had very strong ideas about the design of the 22 Greater Trumps but was
unconcerned with the 56 Lesser Trumps. Only one other artist had ever
illustrated all 78 cards, an unknown 15th Century artist whose dazzling
cards were jealously guarded by the Sola Busca family of Italy.

The Sola Buscas had grudgingly permitted photographic copies of the cards to be put on view at the British Museum in 1908.

And
so it was, that a petite 30-something sufragette took a tweedy
advertising executive for the Horlick's bedtime powdered milk drink
(Waite's "day job" when he wasn't doing occult spellwork) and dragged
him to the British Museum and said she would do the job but only on
condition that she illustrate all 78 cards with artistic license for
design and color.

It
had taken months of pain-staking work. "A big job for very little
cash!" she would write to her friend and benefactor Alfred Stieglitz,
who had made room in his famed New York photography gallery for
exhibitions of some of her "Pictures in Music", watercolors she painted
in a trance-like state while listening to her favorite composers, such
as Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Debussy. On a visit to Paris, she had even
been bold enough to introduce herself to Debussy and show him paintings
she had done to his music. She was greatly flattered when he said she
had captured the very essence of his music.

"You
ask me how these pictures are evolved," she said. "They are not the
music theme — pictures of the flying notes — not conscious illustrations
of the name given to a piece of music, but just what I see when I hear
music-thoughts loosened and set free by the spell of the sound."

She
explained that, for example, "Often when I hear Bach I hear bells
ringing in the sky, rung by whirling cords held in the hands of maidens
dressed in brown."

Stieglitz had shown her music paintings to rave reviews in New York in 1907. The New York Sun critic wrote: "Pamela Colman Smith is a young woman with the quality rare in either sex — imagination."

Pamela
— "Pixie" to her few close friends (mostly women) — had grown up in
London and New York City, as well as in Jamaica. Her father was a
globe-trotting businessman who spent little time at home. Her mother
came from a long line of women poets and children's story-book writers.
The details of her childhood are fuzzy. She had a dark complexion and
facial features which prompted speculation that she had been adopted
during her father's many trips to Jamaica. At any rate, she spent her
formative years in Jamaica, where she learned the patois dialect
perfectly and became a master story-teller of Jamaican tales of magic
and wonder.

But
when her mother died at an early age, little Pixie moved to Brooklyn
Heights where she lived with her father and pursued art classes at the
renowned Pratt Institute, a progressive school which encouraged students
to explore new avenues of expression.

And
when her father also died suddenly, she was shipped back to England to
live with a troupe of actors who were friends of her eccentric father.
She was relieved to be back in England, since her skin color had exposed
her to racist discrimination in the States.

The
rarified atmosphere of London's Leicester Square theatre district was
an invigorating change. In New York she had been "a mulatto".

In
London's West End she was simply exotic. She lived with the
high-profile actress Ellen Terry, who became her mother, mentor and best
friend. Sir Henry Irving, a leading thespian and empresario, became her
ersatz father. The three of them toured Britain in productions when
they weren't staging their own plays in the West End. Pixie lived in
Irving's theatre. She learned set design, costume design (and how to
mend costumes between acts) and she learned how the stage is the
world-in-small.

A
century on, it is hard for us to appreciate how mind-opening the
theatre was. There was no radio, no television. Even the cinema was in
its infancy. To see the world, you went to the theatre. Pamela didn't
just go to the theatre. Surrounded by actors and directors 24 hours a
day, she truly LIVED the theatre. She said it was the perfect place for a budding artist.

"Go
and see all the plays you can," she advised young artists. "For the
stage is a great school — or should be — to the illustrator — as well as
to others."

She openly admitted she had learned more in the theatre than at her famous New York art institute.

"The
stage has taught me almost all I know of clothes, of action and of
pictorial gestures," she said, and her advice to other artists was to
throw away the textbook and just open their eyes and ears. An artist
should always have a sketch pad at hand. She even took her sketch pad to
the ballet to see Nijinsky dance.

"Learn from everything, see everything, and above all feel everything! And make other people when they look at your drawing feel it too!"

She was dismissive of painters who are interested only in their medium and who shun other liberal arts.

"Keep an open mind to all things," she said. Even though you are a painter, listen to music, go to the ballet.

"Hear all the music you can, for sound and form are more closely related than we know."

And she dismissed turn-of-the-century painters who strove only for beauty, ignoring ugliness.

"For
through ugliness is beauty sometimes found," she observed. She recalled
having seen a very dark and brutal stage production which in a way
reminded her of the gritty beauty of poverty-stricken Jamaica.

"All
through that play I thought that ugly things may be true to nature, but
surely it is through evil, that we realize good. The far-off scent of
morning air, the blue mountains, the sunshine, the flowers, of a country
I once lived in, seemed to rise before me — and there on the stage was a
woman sitting on a chair, her body stiff, her eyes rolling, a
wonderfully realistic picture of a fit."

In
fact, "Sherlock Holmes" was her uncle — because her real-life great
uncle was the actor William Gillette, who brought Holmes to the stage in
London and on Broadway. It was Gillette who introduced many of the
mannerisms and props (the deerstalker cap, the meerschaum pipe) which
have been intrinsically associated with Sherlock Holmes by succeeding
generations. Her Uncle Bill even saw to it that Pamela illustrated the
programs for his Holmes productions.

Pamela
became well-known for her afternoon literary teas, at which Yeats,
Stoker and other luminaries would gather in her studio while she put on
the costume of a Jamaican wise woman and sat cross-legged on the floor,
relating Jamaican folk tales in dialect.

She used a miniature theatre and tiny cardboard characters to illustrate her hugely delightful tales.

Her
literary friends encouraged her to publish and illustrate the stories
under her own name, which she did. The book is still in print.

One
frequent male visitor described one such literary evening, saying, "The
door was flung open, and we saw a little round woman, scarcely more
than a girl, standing in the threshold. She looked as if she had been
the same age all her life, and would be so to the end. She was dressed
in an orange-colored coat that hung loose over a green skirt, with black
tassles sewn all around over the orange silk, like the frills on a Red
Indian's trousers. She welcomed us with a little shriek. She was very
dark, and not thin, and when she smiled, with a smile that was
peculiarly infectious, her twinkling gypsy eyes seemed to vanish
altoghether. Just now, at the door they were the eyes of a joyous,
excited child."

This
was shortly after the turn of the 20th Century, and she had perfected
her artistic style and was busy as a book and magazine illustrator.
While publishers mandated style to some extent, Pamela Colman Smith
advocated the Arts and Crafts style, also known as the Secession style or, in the US, as the Craftsman or, especially in California, called the Mission style.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a style which dominated in the years before World War I, and which was between the Art Nouveau style of the 1890s and the Expressionist style which would revolutionize art after the Great War. The Arts and Crafts Movement was
an attempt to reject superfluous Victorian "wedding cake" adornment and
to simplify things to the basics of simple lines and solid colors, in
defiance of bourgeouis homeowners who wanted clutter.

For
one brief moment, in the cosy years before the war, idealistic artists
such as Pamela depicted a magical world in which machines did not
dominate humankind. They were artists who sought to recreate
pre-industrial, even primitive styles in art, architecture and
decoration. Lines were simple. Colors were bold and earthy.

Pamela's
generation of artists saw that a world driven by steam pistons was
heading blindly, full-steam ahead for collision with the cold and
immutable forces of nature. The Titanic disaster in 1912 was only a
symbolic inevitable disaster waiting to happen, as far as these artists
were concerned.

The Arts and Crafts Movement flourished
in the first decade of the 20th Century, and Pamela managed to get by
financially with her illustrations in that style. She also provided
illustrations and even wrote articles for Gustav Stickley's "The Craftsman" magazine which was a leading purveyor of the style.

Not surprisingly, her Tarot cards are an enduring monument to the Arts and Crafts Movement and
its philosophy which holds that a return to timeless styles in the Arts
can help the human race return to timeless virtues and ageless wisdom.
She was seeking to create a world in which racist thought and moral
hypocrisy would vanish along with high-button shoes and celluloid shirt
collars. She wanted everyone to sit on the floor, cross-legged, and
discover the childlike magic of just being alive.

The
cards were published with very little fanfare in December 1909. Only a
few occultists took notice, and most of them were engaged in feuds with
each other. The general public did not notice. Tarot cards were
considered to be "French". The only Tarot cards hitherto available were
from France, and they were considered only slightly less objectionable
than saucy French porn postcards. Pamela was keenly aware that her cards
were not going to make inroads into popular culture.

"Oh, the prudishness and pompous falseness of a great mass of intelligent people!" she wrote in an article for Stickley's "The Craftsman".
It was an article aimed at inspiring young artists. "Lift up your
ideals, you weaklings, and force a way out of that thunderous clamor of
the steam piston, the hurrying herd of blind humanity, noise, dust,
strife, seething toil!"

Those
78 cards are a veritable map of the place which she called "the unknown
country" within an artist's heart. Many of her book illustrations are
variations on that theme, such as "The Hill of Heart's Desire" at left.

To
look at each card in succession is to take a trip through a magical
land where cosmic wisdom and virtue prevail. You can spot recurring
landmarks, such as castles, bridges and towers, which recur from
different vantage points throughout the "journey". This magical land is
peopled by beings who at times wear Renaissance clothing and at other
times wear chitons and togas. The whole magical world is a place beyond
linear time and space.

Waite
never adequately acknowledged her work. In the book accompanying the
cards he failed to mention her by name, saying only that a "young woman
artist" had illustrated them on his instructions. But
in fact, Pamela had been a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn along
with Stoker and Waite. In a way it was only natural since the
English-speaking world's first esoteric book store, Watkins, had just
opened its doors a few steps away from the Leicester Square theatre
district.

Pamela
never wrote about her initiation into occult mysteries. But the very
first card in the deck, The Magician, is graphic proof that she was
privy to occult knowledge of the most secret sort. In 1909 only a
handful of people had read a badly translated copy of Das Buch Abramelin,
a 15th Century German-language grimoire written by a German-Jewish
sorcerer who claimed to have been initiated into ancient mysteries by a
master living in a desert cave on the banks of the Nile.

Even
now, a century after Pamela painted that card, very few people have
read the Book of Abramelin, certainly not in the original German. To
this day there is no full English translation. Those few who have read
it immediately realize that The Magician card is a very precise portrait
taken straight from the ancient book.

In
it, the novice magician is instructed to wear a clean white tunic bound
at the waist by a symbolic ouroboros serpent. He is to wear a crimson
mantle over the tunic while standing before a simple wooden table upon
which are his magical tools. The book then says that, for best results,
the magician's magical work space should look out over a witch's garden
of flowers and magical herbs.

Whatever
Waite thought of "his" cards — and he was very vague in saying what
their purpose should be other than clearly to aggrandize himself —
Pamela knew they were tools not for TELLING the future, but for SHAPING the
future through ancient Abramelin magical spells. That occult secret,
sealed in the colorful symbolism of her cards, was destined to die with
her — to be rediscovered a century after she created the cards by
priests of ANTINOUS THE GAY GOD.

With
that first card, The Magician, and with Renaissance alchemical
symbolism throughout the deck, Pamela shows she was highly knowledgeable
in the occult arts.

The
rest of her story is quickly told. The Titanic sank but the age of the
steam pistons did not go down with it. Instead, the First World War
swept aside the lofty dreams of Pamela's generation of artists. The Arts and Crafts Movement was the first casualty. By 1915 Gustav Stickley's "The Craftsman" magazine ceased publication and his design company went bankrupt.

Pamela's
illustration assignments dried up. By the mid-1920s she was unable to
get even one job a year. When a distant uncle died and left her a modest
nest egg, she took the money and left London, buying a village cottage
at the far western tip of England — not far, in fact, from the fictional
location of Baskerville Hall, which had figured so prominently in Uncle
Bill's Broadway-hit Sherlock Holmes plays.

She
lived in isolation with a woman companion. She died penniless at age 72
on September 18, 1951. The cottage and all her possessions were
auctioned to pay back taxes, leaving her companion with nothing.

In
December 1909 she had told her New York gallerista friend Alfred
Stieglitz that she would send him a pack of the Tarot cards which she
said were being "printed in color lithography (probably very badly) as
soon as they are ready" and that she would also "send over some of the
original drawings as some people MAY like them." By "some
people", she meant "buyers". But the original art work has never
surfaced. Not one of the 78 originals is known to exist.

The
printed card decks vanished into obscurity for decades until the
American playing card connoisseur Stuart R. Kaplan resurrected them in
about 1970. It is largely thanks to him that anyone knows anything about
this extraordinary artist, who created a single work which is ageless
and timeless and which continues to appeal to new generations.

The
final word belongs to Pamela Colman Smith, and it is a statement of
inner strength which could just as easily be the catch-phrase of The
Fool card in her Tarot:

"Banish
fear, brace your courage, place your ideals high up with the sun, away
from the dirt and squalor and ugliness around you and let that power
that makes the 'roar of the high-power pistons' enter into your work —
energy — courage — life — love. Use your wits. Use your eyes. Perhaps
you use your physical eyes too much and only see the mask. Find eyes
within, look for the door into the unknown country."